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have nevertheless expressed the opinion that you could not be persuaded to adopt it, but that, because you have grown accustomed to the present order, you would prefer to continue a wretched existence under it rather than enjoy a better life under a stricter polity; and they warned me that I even ran the risk, although giving you the very best advice, of being thought an enemy of the people and of seeking to turn the state into an oligarchy.The ready retort of demagogues to any critic of ochlocracy. See Isoc. 15.318 and note; Aristoph. Pl. 570.
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Well, if I were proposing a course which was unfamiliar and not generally known, and if I were urging you to appoint a committee or a commissionThe very word (συγγραφεῖς) which was used of the board of twenty men appointed to make recommendations of a change in the constitution before the establishment of the oligarchy of the Four Hundred, 411 B.C. to consider it, which was the means through which the democracy was done away with before, there might be some reason for this charge. I have, however, proposed nothing of the kind, but have been discussing a government whose character is hidden from no one, but evident to all—
